Hockey fever in Sin City
Knights fans pack final practice before playoff debut
To hardcore sports fans, the term “bandwagon jumper” is an insult.
That’s the beauty of the Vegas Golden Knights’ improbable run to the Stanley Cup playoffs in their very first season. Unless you’re a toddler, you can’t claim that you’ve been cheering for the Knights your whole life.
We’re all bandwagon jumpers, and none of us are.
We’ve all been here right
from the start.
About 700 of the Knights’ new fans filled City National Arena on Tuesday to watch the team’s final practice before postseason play.
Such turnout isn’t unusual for the most successful expansion team in NHL history. Staff members at the team’s training facility in Summerlin said they’ve seen even bigger crowds than that.
Bethany Drysdale said she’s attended about 35 practices since November, usually with one or both of her two young sons in tow.
“It borders on obsession, but I’ll talk about that with
KNIGHTS
my therapist,” she said with a smile.
As Drysdale spoke, her 2-year-old son, Blake, stared out at the rink from behind the glass in the kid’s autograph area until he spotted the first player to take the ice. “Hockey man!” Blake announced.
Drysdale said she grew up in the Pittsburgh area playing youth hockey and rooting for the Penguins. She switched her allegiance to the Knights when they picked up longtime Penguins goalie Marc-andre Fleury in last year’s expansion draft.
She said she and her husband are stationed at Nellis Air Force Base. They’ve only been able to afford tickets to one Knights game so far, so the free practices are a nice substitute.
“We come here to get our hockey fix,” Drysdale said.
At ‘playoff pitch’ all season
Joe Mainardi is a longtime Red Wings fan whose first NHL game was one of the last Detroit played at the old Olympia Stadium in 1979.
The retired software engineer now lives in Southern California — “Kings country, L.A. County,” he said — but he bought Knights season tickets last year in anticipation of an eventual move to Las Vegas.
He’s about two months from settling into his new home in the valley, but he’s already made it to about 20 games at T-mobile Arena. The Knights are now his team in the Western Conference, while the Wings are his team in the East. He said it’s only a problem if they meet in the Stanley Cup Final.
Mainardi said it’s clear many local fans are still learning the game, but he is impressed by how loud and enthusiastic the home crowds are.
“It’s like they’re at playoff pitch,” he said. “They’re standing up and cheering, even if they’re not quite sure why.”
One thing they haven’t quite figured out is how to shout down visiting fans with a cohesive chant of their own, Mainardi said. “They’re going to have to step it up in the playoffs.”
‘Playing hooky for hockey’
Before Tuesday’s practice, fans shopped for gear in the team store and lined up along the railing above the bleachers to snap pictures and swap stories about what they had to do — and pay — for playoff tickets.
Longtime Las Vegans Don and Debbie Aumiller showed up an hour and a half before practice in hopes of beating the crowds and grabbing a few more autographs for their daughter’s Fleury jersey.
“She’s got (Cody) Eakin, (Jonathon) Merrill and (Luca) Sbisa,” Don Aumiller said, pointing at his daughter’s back. “Sbisa did it when he had his cast on and stuff. He had mad skills with those first two fingers.”
Vanessa Aumiller is an eighth-grader at Martin Middle School, but her parents kept her out of school Tuesday.
“We figure this is playing hooky for hockey,” Don Aumiller said. “This is a rare circumstance.”
And it was the least the 14-yearold’s parents could do, considering they only managed to score two tickets to Wednesday’s game and Vanessa isn’t getting one.
Don Aumiller said maybe they’ll get lucky and find two more tickets to another playoff game, possibly in the second round.
If that happens, “They can box over it,” he said, smiling at his wife and daughter. “I’m going.”
Debbie and Vanessa Aumiller went from not caring much about sports to being devoted hockey fans in a matter of months. Vanessa said she likes the teamwork and the speed. They both said they like the intensity of the game. Don Aumiller said his wife even yells at the referees now.
Even if the Knights had played like an expansion team — losing most of their games, as many experts predicted before the season — they would have a strong following in
Las Vegas, he said. The team “won a lot of hearts” with the way it paid tribute to those killed in the Oct. 1 shooting.
“The winning?” Don Aumiller said. “That’s just a bonus.”
Now the Knights are hosting their first playoff game in franchise history.
The puck drops at 7 p.m. Bandwagon jumpers, come on board.
Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @Refriedbrean on Twitter.